To Hell With Sympathy

Many Americans take hollywood as history. Another failing of this country! This can be added to a general lack of knowledge of or interest in history of any kind.

Wilso,

Hard for me to figure out from this and other of your screeds whether yours is an Australian or European perspective. No matter.

The U.S. had no interest whatever in the outcome of WWI. It was purely the invention of more or less equally greedy European powers, all seeking the same things, and who created a particularly absurd network of alliances and mobilization plans that enabled an assassination in Bosnia to put the whole thing beyond control. We owed allegiance to neither side in this foolish, wasteful and bloody war, and it is certainly no fault of ours that we waited several years to get involved. The Allies were not winning in 1917, despite your assertion to the contrary. Germany had defeated Russia and was transferring hundreds of thousands of trops to the Western Front where stupid French and British generals were wasting their men by the tens of thousands in fruitless assaults on well prepared defensive positions. Many here believe we and the world would have been better off had we stayed out of WWI, which merely laid the seeds for WWII, primarily due to the duplicity and vengefulness of the statesmen of the European powers you evidently admire so much.

Europe produced such a surplus of evil leaders during the lead up to WWII that it is not clear to whom you are referring. There wasn't much to choose between Stalin and Hitler (not to mention the other, lesser members of this cast.). We had made no guarantees to any European states, and we owed them nothing. Only Britain resisted the depredations of Hitler to any significant extent, and even there it was a touchy thing. Chamberlain at Munich certainly did not give us an inspiring example, and the cheering crowds that greeted his return did not encourage us to help. It wasn't the United States that betrayed Czechoslovakia at Munich, it was Britain and France. At the time these two states had the military power to stop Hitler, but they lacked the courage and the will. The French went on to supinely give up and sit out the war while shipping their Jews off to German extermination camps. Britain, thanks to Churchill, the Commonwealth and the aid of the United States fought on and won.

Russia and England had much to do with saving the world from Nazism. The resultant carving up of the European continent was not exactly ideal but really unavoidable. Besides, I find all of this to be characterized too closely to gloating and not recognizing that the US has make plenty of mistakes in the past, some of them tragic.

Just recently Hollywood decided that the Enigma code machine had been captured first by Americans. I find all this blind patriotism to be very dangerous and counter productive.

As far as "evil" leaders go, I always wonder if mediocre leaders who are perceived to be on the good side haven't created just as much damage to society.

I'm not going deeper in what I think, is another of the typical American pre-judices, most Europeans don't like (just reminding you of the French exile-government, the great concentration camps in France, la Résistance ...).




Winston Churchill, in: New York Enquirer, 1936


I'm not saying with this quotation that this would have happened, but it could have been possible.

And Chamberlain just believed in peace, which couldn't happen under Hitler, as we know now. But it seemed possible for him

Walter,

Is it really an American prejudice? We did show France every consideration both during and after the war. And we supported DeGaulle a good deal more than did the British who had little love for him and his ambitions. The fact is the French did sit out the war, and though there no doubt was both suffering and resistance during the occupation, there would have been much more of both than had France fought on.

It is also true that the seeds for Hitlers rise to power were indeed sown in Versailles where the vengeful pair of Clemenceau and Lloyd George dominated the proceedings and the surrender and retribution they imposed on Germany after the 'armistice'.

I happen to agree with the sentiment expressed by Churchill in the 1936 quote you offered. I do believe our entry in WWI was a great error. I doubt that Wilso, who evidently believes we are still a part of the British Empire, would agree. Woodrow Wilson got us into it and he was, in my view, by far our worst President of this century.

I also am willing to believe that up until 1939 Chamberlain likely believed that Stalin was the worst danger confronting Europe and Britain. He was not entirely without reason in this.

It does pain me though to hear such criticism of us from Europeans, who, mindful of the ghastly history of that continent, should know better.

As compared to Americans, who, ignorant of history, often don't know any better!

Rehashing WW1
Does it really help now?



And then along came GW Bush.

I'm agreeing with georgeob (and, incidentally, Gore Vidal) that Wilson got us into the war and it was a terrible error.

I can't agree that France could have fought on nor that they should just fall down and agree with what the Bush administration has concocted (or orchestrated, take your pick).

Speak for yourself.

If the Atlantic Ocean hadn't existed, we'd have been involved in far more of that ghastly history.

Yes but it does exist. Moreover our ancestors crossed it, often at great peril, just to escape that ghastly history.

Now that it doesn't matter that it exists, we are hell bent to begin our own ghastly history.

Lightwizard.

It is possible, some would say likely, that we will make most of the mistakes our predecessors have made. Too early to tell. Let us hope we can be both farsighted and wise.

farsighted and wise.
Forget that. We will have 4 and half more years of GW. Try to imagine "farsighted and wise" with that moron and his crowd in power.